Female Voice actress

Marketing Me

Hello VO world! Allow me to introduce myself: Kristy Wagner, trained and invested voice-over artist, auditioning constantly, but could do a lot more to get work. That’s me…today. Tomorrow…I hope to have another client and another job.

How do I get to tomorrow? So far in my journey, I have learned that marketing is one thing, but delivering the goods is another. I have marketed to the point where I get auditions from entities other than pay-to-play and after submitting my audition…nothing. “They really like your sound so just be you.” This is real direction I received and while I understand what this person was getting at, I also find it to be flawed. In voice-over and acting in general, people tell you all the time to “be you.” I definitely am “me” in my auditions, but the reason I do not get the jobs might be because listeners don’t know me or who I am; so how can they tell if what they are hearing is me or not? I’ll tell you how: marketing.

If you’re like me, marketing is an ugly word that makes you want to vomit out of your earballs, but bear with me when I say marketing, like anything else, is more than meets the eye. Marketing is this blog, marketing is a YouTube video, marketing is an email or a phone call to a producer at a local production company; but, most importantly, marketing a full time frickin’ job.

Voice-over auditioning and recording for clients is a full-time job. So where do you fit in your marketing? After some research on marketing and how to work smarter and not harder, I believe I am all for marketing tactics that work for me while I am working on other things, like recording. Now, I haven’t tried this yet, but I am starting on this journey.

What kind of marketing works in the background while you’re working? Social media posts (I know, gross, but social media marketing is where it’s at so get on board); networking on social media so the right people see your posts; blogging and vlogging…and promoting the blog and vlog on social media.

Marketing in these ways might help me get to where I want to be and when I audition and a potential client researches me online they will see blogs, vlogs, social media posts…they will see “me.” And, hopefully, hear me in my voice and deem me authentic and pay me to voice their project. Because let’s be real, we’re all in this to get paid. I can act for free in community theater, but I prefer to get paid for doing what I love so I voice act and I will keep trying to market myself and stick with what works to get me paid.

On a side note, please think twice before buying eBooks, programs, etc. online by people who swear their marketing techniques will get you work in one day to a week. These people want hundreds of dollars for one eBook and it is crap. Marketing is easy once it is understood and to understand marketing for you and your business simply think about whom you want to notice you and how to get the attention of those people. Don’t give someone a buttload of money to teach you how to market—if you want to go that route, enroll in a marketing class at your local college or university or simply pay a professional marketing company to market your business (probably get more for the same or less amount of money).